This invention is directed to the conditioning of hair with a composition which includes the combination of a silicone polyether and an amine functional polysiloxane fluid. Such blends have been found to impart improved conditioning benefits to the hair.
Hair preparations are compositions which are employed on the scalp or hair. The most important hair preparations are shampoos, conditioning products, colorants, hairstyling preparations including setting lotions and hairsprays, and permanent wave preparations.
Shampoos are mild cosmetic products for cleaning the hair and scalp. Hair becomes soiled due to skin flakes, sebum, perspiration, dust, and residues from sprays, lotions and conditioning agents. Shampoos are designed to leave the hair clean, pliable, lustrous, possessing a pleasant odor, and easy to untangle, comb, manage, and style. The principal ingredient of a shampoo is a surfactant which functions to release dirt from the hair and to transport it to the aqueous medium. Since consumers equate lathering with cleanliness, anionic surfactants such as alkyl sulfates and sulfonates are preferred because of their high lather. Numerous other constituents are included in shampoos such as thickeners to prevent the shampoo from running down the face into the eyes, opacifiers to provide a rich pleasing pearlescent appearance, buffers to adjust the pH of the shampoo to a value which is gentle to the skin, and fragrances to impart a pleasant aroma to the washed hair following rinsing. Most frequently, shampoos are marketed as clear products although gels having a higher viscosity and packaged in tubes, and pearlescent compositions are available.
With the advent of consumer trends toward daily hair washing, conditioning shampoos have emerged which are designed to render the hair easy to comb and tangle free in the wet state, as well as glossy and soft when dry. Such conditioning is provided by the inclusion in the shampoo of an organic cationic polymer which upon rinsing produces a thin film on the hair. This film functions as a lubricant when the hair is wet and prevents static charge and "flyaway" when the hair is dry.
Conditioning may also be provided by hair conditioning products designed solely for that purpose such as rinses, mousses, aerosols, and pump sprays, which conditioners are applied following shampooing. These conditioning products are rinsed from the hair a short time following their application. Such conditioners prevent excessive split ends and other mechanical hair damage and roughening, and seek to neutralize the adverse effects which hair undergoes due to humidity, temperature, exposure to sunlight, frequent washing, combing, and brushing, and cosmetic treatments such as bleaching, dyeing, and waving.
The present invention provides a viable alternative to hair conditioning with cationic organic polymers, and provides an organosilicon conditioning additive which not only achieves conditioning on the level obtained with organic conditioners, but which in addition results in an unexpected "synergy" obtained when certain silicone polymers are combined. Not only do the blended silicones provide improved wet combining, but they in addition impart durable and long lasting conditioning benefits, in comparison to single silicones traditionally noted for their conditioning effect.